STOMPING GROUND

By Jo Rittey

Collingwood in Melbourne has a rich brewing history with more than 35 breweries once calling the suburb home before they all had closed down by the early 1900s. Stomping Ground Brewing Co is the first brewery to open in the area in more than 100 years and there has obviously been a thirst for it.

The team behind beer meccas The Local Taphouse and GABS festival loved the idea of reimagining beer in Australian brewing’s original stomping ground. Three months in, the new independent brewery is fast tracking its expansion due to the neighbourhood voting with their feet and initial capacity maxing out.

“The first few months have been incredible,” says Steve Jeffares who, along with partners Guy Greenstone and Justin Joiner, opened the brewery without fanfare in October after more than three years in planning. “We have been far busier than expected at this stage and people have responded really well to our beers. It’s been a challenge for the team to just keep up but we’ve finally ironed out the inevitable opening kinks.”

New large tanks just installed will double the potential output of the brewery and help meet the strong demand for beer from many local pubs and bars as well as the brewery’s family friendly beer hall, which is open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week.

Head Brewer Ashur Hall has brewed almost 30 different beers already and has exciting plans to brew plenty of interesting one-off and seasonal beers too.

“Beer comes in such a huge variety of flavours and complexities and there’s a massive amount of choice already out there,” Greenstone adds.

“We’ve been working on creating a wide range of awesome beers but we’re also really keen to provide guidance to help people make the right choice about which beers they’d like to try.”

Joiner probably sums it up best though; “We’re pretty passionate about sharing our love of beer with as many people as possible. It’s a lot of fun.”

Stomping Ground beers are currently available on tap only but with further brewing capacity being added early in the New Year, plans are afoot to install a canning line in 2017. While all beers are released at the beer hall, a select few can be found on a growing number of taps around Melbourne.

Jo Rittey is a freelance writer who wants to live in a world where apostrophes are used correctly and smiles are genuine. When she’s not roaming the streets of the northside in search of great food, she likes getting lost in beautiful films and having wildly enthusiastic discussions with chefs.

The Northsider is a monthly community newspaper made for the inner north of Melbourne by the inner north of Melbourne. It is powered by citizen journalism and publishes articles written by people who live and work in Collingwood, Fitzroy, Northcote, Preston, Brunswick, Coburg, Carlton, Parkville, North Melbourne and nearby suburbs. We distribute to all of those areas too, plus more. If you would like to contribute please see the details on the submissions tab. It’s also free (we mean priceless)

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